The Long's Peak Working Group and river basin trusts.

• Author: Hatfield, Mark O.
• Position: Long's Peak Report: Reforming National Water Policy

According to the Population Reference Bureau, the world's population could explode to twice its current level of 5.5 billion by the year 2035.(1) Accompanying this increase will be a significant escalation in the demand for the one substance upon which all life depends, water. As the demand for this precious resource grows, so will the stakes associated with its acquisition and possession. To deal with this situation, the Long's Peak Working Group was established in December of 1992 to help the incoming Clinton Administration develop an initial framework for the management of the nation's water resources.

The Long's Peak group developed a twelve page report, entitled "America's Waters: A New Era of Sustainability," which includes overviews of several basic principles, as well as forty-seven specific short- and mid-term recommendations for the Clinton Administration relating to sustainable water use.(2) The report offers an excellent analysis of the missing pieces of our nation's water policy puzzle and recommends how those pieces should be reconfigured. Many of the recommendations are designed to operate within the nation's existing water management structure, while others point in new directions.

The report makes great strides in prescribing new methods for managing our water resources. It does not go far enough, however, toward dismantling our existing water policy framework and reconfiguring the pieces into a realistic proposal for management of water and other interdependent natural resources. The time has come for a new era in water and natural resource policy in the United States, which is founded on these resource interrelationships and provides incentives for river basin and watershed planning. Building upon the yeoman's work of the Long's Peak Working Group, we can create, develop and implement this visionary new policy approach for the next millennium.

The Clinton Administration has adopted already a number of the suggestions of the Long's Peak Working Group, including changing the Bureau of Reclamation's mission from one of project construction and engineering to water distribution and conservation.(3) The Administration also is pursuing elevating the Environmental Protection Agency's status to Cabinet-level(4), and rewriting our nation's wetlands policies.(5) Indeed, the framework developed by the thirty members of Long's Peak can serve to guide the Administration and the Congress as we engage in major policy debates on such issues as the Clean Water Act(6), the Safe Drinking Water Act(7) and the Endangered Species Act(8) the coming year.

The importance of water to the United States has become more pronounced during the last several years. Significant skirmishes are occurring already regarding the primary and secondary uses of water. During Congressional debate on the Omnibus Reclamation Projects Authorization Bill of 1992(9), members of Congress fought tooth and nail to set aside 800,000 acre-feet of water for fish and wildlife enhancement in California's Central Valley.(10) Additionally, a similar encounter is raging in the Pacific Northwest over the most appropriate use of millions of acre-feet of water for the recovery of several runs of wild Columbia River Basin salmon.

Other critical areas throughout the United States are experiencing problem with water supplies, pollution, and fish and wildlife needs. The Ogallala Aquifer region, which stretches from South Dakota to Texas, is considered "The Bread Basket of World" because of its immense agricultural production capacity of $20 billion per year.(11) Alarmingly, the aquifer is now more than half depleted over much of its range and is showing little sign of recovery.

Lack of water also has been a major problem in the western United States for at least the past seven years due to a severe drought. Indeed, even in the Pacific Northwest, which is often mischaracterized as "the land of liquid sunshine," the drought continues to parch many river basins. Fortunately for Oregon, the drought has subsided, but in many areas of Washington State and the Upper Columbia River Basin drought conditions continue.

The drought in the Pacific Northwest is a classic illustration of the obvious but seldom-acknowledged fact that watersheds do not confine themselves to politically-designated boundaries between localities, states or nations. Rather, boundaries often are drawn across natural river basins and watersheds, creating competition among political entities for control over water resources. In fact, from a geo-political perspective, water in internationally-shared basins could prove to be one of the most contentious commodities in the future.

Many times in the past century, nations have engaged in armed conflicts to secure stable supplies of raw materials. During the 1930's and 40's, Japan launched numerous attacks on nations throughout the south Pacific to acquire a stable supply of oil from the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. These attacks included Manchuria in 1931, China in 1937, French Indochina (now south Vietnam) in July of 1941, and finally an all-out blitz on south east Asian targets on December 7-8, 1941 which included Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, and of course...